Hilary Clinton's Heroine

Ela Bhatt : Hilary Clinton’s heroine -
WASHINGTON: US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has hailed India's eminent social activist Ela Bhatt as one of her "heroines" for her pioneering work in empowering women. "I have a lot of heroes and heroines around the world," Clinton said on Thursday, adding that one of them is Ela Bhatt, who started an organization called the Self-Employed Women's Association (Sewa) in India many years ago.

"She was a very well educated woman who had the options available to those in her class with her intellectual ability, but she chose to devote her life to organizing the poorest of the poor, women who worked in fields, who sold vegetables, who were domestics, who struggled to eke out a living for themselves
These women included vegetable sellers, rag pickers, bidi rollers (a hand-rolled cigarette), incense makers, cleaners, laborers, cart pullers, and silk and cotton workers.
"I realized that although eighty percent of women in India are economically active, they are outside the purview of legislation." Ela recognized that these women needed the help that they could get only through organizing together as a large group. To meet that need, she founded SEWA in 1972 to organize for better pay and working conditions. SEWA, which today has 250,000 members, helped workers at the lowest level of society become empowered to take control of their lives.
It soon became apparent that women workers had a serious problem with money and banking. Even though many of the women worked twelve hours a day or more, they made little money, had no savings, and never had enough capital to improve their conditions. For example, a home- based textile assembler might have to pay high rent on the sewing machine she used. She never had enough money at one time to buy the machine. Even if a woman was able to get a little money together, the money often was not safe at home, where men felt entitled to whatever was in the
Since women's wealth was often in the form of jewelry, they also got funds through pawning. Because they were largely illiterate, these women were unable to sign their names at a bank and were unfamiliar with banking routines. A male relative would have to sign for them, gaining access to the money. In addition, bankers, who had never dealt with illiterate low-income women, treated them badly.
SEWA had a meeting to which 2000 women came and told of their difficulties with the banks. Finally, someone said, "Let's start our own bank!" Others agreed, and the idea was underway. SEWA Bank was registered in 1974 with 4,000 members. When money had to be raised to register the bank, the women, saying, "We are poor, but we are so many!" raised the needed RS. 100,000 within six months. Ela says that the idea that illiterate women cannot be decision-makers in finance is an untrue middle-class